


Take A Last Breath

by Tallulah



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Fear of Death, Friendship, Infidelity, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 10:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17323397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallulah/pseuds/Tallulah
Summary: Ide and Aizawa take a walk in the small hours of January 28th.





	Take A Last Breath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [still_lycoris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/gifts).



Ide had been kidding himself. He knows that now. Spending the last couple of weeks with Matsuda, who makes optimism a competitive sport, had allowed him to pretend that Raito wasn’t Kira and they were in no danger and if the case was going to be brought to a close it would be in an entirely bloodless manner, freeing them up to return to normal life. 

But now, with Aizawa back at the headquarters carrying hopelessness around him like a cloud (like a shadow, like a god of death following your every move) Ide knows that the pretense was exactly that.

It’s entirely likely they’re going to die tomorrow.

He goes through the day on autopilot because what else can he do? Walking out and going to a bar to drink himself into oblivion, or chucking himself off a bridge just to spite Kira, or something else equally self-destructive, still seems melodramatic. Which suggests that he’s _still_ kidding himself, deep down, that he doesn’t really believe he’s just going to – stop – that he thinks the part of him behind his eyes watching himself make coffee and check records and eat convenience store food is still going to exist in twenty-four hours’ time –

Aizawa looks like he’s doing the same, but he looks more exhausted every time Ide glances over at him, like the knowledge is too heavy for him to keep holding onto. By eleven-thirty p.m. Matsuda’s asleep on the couch, Aizawa looks like he’s never going to sleep again, and Raito’s calm, relaxed demeanour is making Ide want to punch him.

So he says to Aizawa, “Come take a walk. Clear your head,” and to Raito, “That’s not a problem, I hope?”

Raito meets his eyes and smiles and says of course it isn’t and Ide thinks how pathetic these attempts at normality must look to him (if he is Kira, if he _is_ , and maybe Near could be wrong, maybe there’s still some hope –)

Outside the air is crisp and cold and their breath clouds around them. They walk in silence for a few minutes, past apartment blocks, shuttered shops, Aizawa not even seeming to care that they’re going nowhere in particular, until Ide makes himself say, “You spoke to your family?”

Aizawa says, flatly, “Not today.”

“Maybe…”

“I said what I needed to say last time I spoke to them,” Aizawa says, a _don’t-push-it_ tone entering his voice. “No point in calling Eriko now. She’ll want to know what’s wrong and she doesn’t need to.”

Ide can’t decide if that’s a stupid approach or an entirely reasonable one. Come to think of it, he hasn’t got in touch with any of his family either. What would he say? Couldn’t tell them anything about what’s going on; blurting out deep truths without revealing why will only leave them puzzled and worried; and the thought of making small talk and trying to act like everything’s fine is exhausting. 

“If,” he begins, “If Near’s on the wrong track, then you can call her tomorrow night –”

“For god’s sake, you know that’s not going to happen.” Aizawa stops walking, hands shoved in his pockets – his face is in shadow but Ide can hear the glare in his voice – “You and Matsuda have been deluding yourselves this entire time. This is it, we said we’d risk our lives for this damn case and now it’s happening and – just _face_ it, why don’t you –”

He takes a breath and it’s shaky and then he doesn’t seem angry any more, just scared. Aizawa’s hardly ever scared. And he stands still like he doesn’t even know why they should keep walking. Ide takes a breath of his own, cold air in his throat, tries not to think about how it might feel to stop breathing, that’s not helpful right now. He goes to lean against a low wall nearby, and Aizawa comes to sit next to him, stares at the ground, at the light of the streetlamps reflected in the puddles. 

Ide says at last, “I don’t think there’s much way I _can_ face it.” He sounds nervous, more nervous than he’d like, so he makes himself continue, more sternly, “It’s a little late to start fulfilling long-held ambitions, don’t you think? And I don’t think a last-night-of-my-life bar crawl will help the situation. All we can do is… is keep moving forward.”

“Right,” Aizawa says, bitterly. “Keep moving forward and keep our noses to the grindstone despite being _completely insignificant_ to this case as it stands. Despite having wasted _years_ on absolutely nothing. I should’ve walked away at the start, or, or when L pulled that stunt when we were after Higuchi, I should’ve kept out of it. Matsuda and Mogi would still have got involved but at least you wouldn’t have. I mean, we’re no one special, but dying for _nothing_ –”

Ide would like to say _I might still have stayed_ but he knows that’s not true. If Aizawa had walked, so would he. 

“Yeah,” he says, “but you never would have walked away. Even if you’d left with me at the outset, you’d have come back. And then so would I.” 

“Well, you’re as stupid as I am, then, aren’t you,” Aizawa says.

Ide chooses not to say, _No, it’s just that it’s strange, not having you around,_ but that’s basically the truth of it. When you’ve known someone since college, when you’ve seen each other through hangovers from hell, all-night study sessions after having done no work for weeks, first full-time job, first promotion, marriage and kids – hell, when you’ve literally made out with them, once or twice or more, when you were both drunk and single at three a.m. in a grotty student apartment – god, he hasn’t thought of that in years – 

No way was he going to have walked away from the case this time.

Tomorrow, if things go the way it seems like they’re going to, will he see Aizawa die first?

He wishes he hadn’t thought that but he can’t get the image out of his mind. No matter how much he tells himself it won’t matter, that he’ll only have a few seconds to think about it, it sits there like a stone in his mind, and all around it his thoughts just go into meltdown, over and over _we can’t die – we can’t die –_

“Sorry,” Aizawa mutters. “Didn’t mean – I mean – you’re right. No point in – in thinking like this. Just, just I’m sorry that… I’m sorry I dragged you into this –”

He said that before, long ago, when they were young and Ide, as the slightly-less-drunk one, was half-carrying him up the stairs, and he was warm and heavy and it was dark and somehow they were kissing and Aizawa said, _Shit. Sorry, sorry, I fucked up the night, sorry…_

Ide said, and says, “Don’t be stupid, you didn’t do anything.”

He lied when he said he hasn’t thought about it in years. It was at the back of his mind, more than once, but never more than that, because Aizawa had said, when he and Eriko started getting serious, _she wants me to settle down, she wants me to get it together a bit, you know?_ and you don’t fantasise about your married colleagues unless you’re _really_ stupid. And if, once or twice or more, there’d been a moment where they’d caught each other’s eye or someone had said something which acknowledged it or, that time, when Ide had said to Matsuda, _I have been in love, it just wasn’t very romantic –_ without even thinking about it –

Aizawa had said, _I could never do that to her, you understand? I don’t want you thinking that I’d ever –_ and Ide had said, _I never thought you would –_

He hears himself say, and it was meant to be funny, “Reckon he’ll do it alphabetically? Reckon you’ll go out first?” and it’s not funny, it just makes all the _we can’t die_ louder and faster and he stammers, “Because, because that’s not… because seeing you snuff it, that’s not what I signed up for –”

“Shut up,” Aizawa is saying, shaking him by the shoulder, “I didn’t want –”

Being terrified is nothing like being drunk but both of them can leave you having done things your rational brain didn’t have a say in. Aizawa shakes him by the shoulder and he – it wasn’t about _lust_ , it was about wanting to clutch on to someone alive, wanting to _prove_ that _we can’t die – we can’t –_ and then Aizawa’s shoulders under his hands, the closeness, and _then_ it was about lust and then they’re kissing quick and desperate like there’s nothing else they could possibly do. 

They break apart and they’re both gasping for breath and around them it’s so cold. 

Aizawa mutters, “Come on. Not here.” 

In the dark, round the side of a shop, with a heating unit rattling further down the alleyway and no lights above them, they fall onto each other again, mouths, cold fingers, heat, and Ide _wants_ like no time at all has passed since the last time this happened. Like none of the last decade or so has happened. Like wanting this much, feeling this much even when it’s cold and dark and you could be being watched by anyone, means you’ll always stay alive. It doesn’t take long. They don’t do much. They slump against the wall and Ide listens to the heating unit and the sound of traffic far away and their own harsh breathing. It’s loud in his ears, but he finds himself tensing and listening anyway, as if it might suddenly stop.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 12daysChristmas on LiveJournal, prompt "Twelve great weights".


End file.
